“Oh, Kathy’s never [played] someone this bad,” Ryan Murphy revealed to TVLine with a laugh at PaleyFest Wednesday night, where he was honored with the event’s inaugural Icon Award. “Her [character] is a bad, bad woman!”

While most details surrounding the acclaimed actress’ buzzy new role are being kept under wraps, Murphy couldn’t help but raise fans’ expectations just a teensy bit more by promising that Bates’ Horror Story nemesis is “five times worse than [her] Misery character — which is why she liked it.

“When I pitched this to Kathy, her mouth was drop-jawed because what I was pitching actually happened,” Murphy continued. “It’s a true event… You’ll see. It’s some good stuff.”

As previously reported, Horror Story vet Jessica Lange essentially had her pick of actors for the FX drama’s upcoming chapter — which is how the idea to cast Bates first came to Murphy.

“Jessica told me in Season 1 that Kathy was a huge fan of the show, so I just put that in the back of my mind,” the prolific producer explained. “When we were crafting this season, I found this character — a true-life character — so I called Kathy and said, ‘I don’t know if you want to do TV again, but I’ve got this character…’ She said, ‘I love you and I love the show. Lemme think for two weeks’ — and then she called me in an hour and said, ‘I love it! I’ll do it!’ It was great.”

Have any theories on who Bates’ Big Bad will be? Did you ever think anyone could be worse than her Misery gal? Hit the comments!